


Tabula Rasa

by Zoloto



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: AKA what I wished had happened, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt, Eventual Comfort, Gen, Minor Spoilers, mono's relationship with the thin man is different, the events of chapter 4 are the same but the circumstances are not, this is my take on the fix it fics lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoloto/pseuds/Zoloto
Summary: When his old mentor comes to collect what belongs to him as a result of his protégé's curiosity, the butterfly effect of Mono's choices thus far reaches a startling conclusion. //  Minor Chapter 4 spoilers in the first half, then it turns into what I think happened!
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares), Mono & The Thin Man (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

> This game has emotionally wrecked me in so many ways. My friends and I can't stop coming up with our own theories, so I decided to share mine!

_"History has a way of altering villains so that we can no longer see ourselves in them."_ \-- Adam Serwer.

* * *

If he moved now, his life would most certainly be over before it had even begun. 

The dark shadow that pursued them from the living room was drawing nearer. Even now, with his belly pressed to the ground and the safety of the bed shielding him from what lay beyond the sound of steady footsteps, Mono slapped clammy palms over his mouth and waited for the inevitable. He waited for the one he’d dreaded for years to enter his life again. He waited for his old ally, his former mentor, the tall man _he had set free_ to breach the safety of the room. To tear the place apart in search of him, and to drag him back to the Tower. Mono knew him well enough already to know that his teacher’s practices were far from merciful to those who strayed, and Mono’s trickery to trap and abandon him were not likely to be easily forgiven.

Six had been right the whole time… She had been wise to yank him from the screens… To keep him from reaching the door at the end of the hall, and allowing the transmission’s call to lure him back to what he’d pushed to the back of his mind. But he’d ignored her concern. Due to whatever it may be, be it repressed memories bubbling to the surface, a desire to confront the door, or curiosity, he’d allowed the static to slither back into his mind like a serpent, coiling itself around his brain and slowly constricting until he could no longer pull away from its’ iron embrace.

His fault. Because he’d opened Pandora’s Box, an unholy terror was unleashed upon the world. Mono practically heard the chanting as the static drew nearer, overwhelmed his consciousness, and made every muscle in his body brace for impact.

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

**_YOUR FAULT._ **

Mono buried his face in his arms under the bed. But somehow even trying to run and hide from his own problems didn’t seem fair. He found his gaze lifting, and his mocha brown eyes meeting Six’s deep indigo ones across the room. Like many other times before, they conversed easily without so much as a word between them. They had talked to each other on occasion, but.. For the most part they had enjoyed the solitary silence of one another’s company. 

_I tried to warn you,_ Six’s eyes pleaded to him.

The boy could only gulp in his guilt. He _knew_ that she knew full well. And now even she was powerless to stop the results of his asinine curiosity from killing two cats.

Then.. Then HE was there. Two glitching, monochrome-suede shoes in the doorway. The Thin Man slowly ducked to enter the room, every echoed footstep like the ticking of a steady clock. Ticking and tocking the seconds down to his protégé’s doom. The lights buzzed and hummed, thrumming with an energetic vitality Mono had only ever experienced in levels that had terrified him. And with little surprise, he found that it STILL terrified him, and Six wasn’t faring much better from her own perch.

She’d ducked under the nearby table for refuge, but as Mono was soon to witness, that hiding place was far from the best place she could have gone. 

The room rocked unsteadily with the presence of the powerful being. And with it, the table Six was under wobbled dangerously. Six herself seemed to grasp the severity of the situation, as she dove to crawl under the bed when the table finally tipped over and exposed her position. Six pulled herself across the floor, but to his horror she.. Wasn’t moving any closer. The little girl pushed and tugged and thrashed, but something invisible held her in place. This was _bad._

Scrambling to help his friend, Mono too found that his move speed was warped. Jerking forward, it seemingly took him about six or seven seconds longer to even move his limbs to lurch forward. And that was not a good sign. Because while he was swearing internally and uselessly floundering to reach Six, the Thin Man made his move.

One long, gangly hand reached out. Calmly, as if he WEREN’T about to yank Mono back to living life in a literal hell. 

_“If I cannot convince you to listen to reason, then I have no other choice but to force your hand,”_ the gravelly voice Mono had grown to loathe snarled lowly. 

Mono gritted his teeth. His hands fumbled their way to cover his ears from the voice, even though he knew it was not one he would be able to block from his mind so easily. Helplessness set in deeply into his heart, though, as the Thin Man made his choice. His fingers flexed and bent, and soon as he had moved, something even worse than he’d hoped for happened right in front of his eyes.

Six’s little hand strained, grasping at air, trying desperately to reach Mono underneath the bed. But the same invisible force that had her pinned LAUNCHED her backwards just as easily as it had kept her still. With a shrill scream that cut through Mono’s heart like a cold knife, the Thin Man tilted his head and disappeared into the air waves with little Six clutched in his palm with no say in the matter.

Wait. No— no, no, _NO!!_ It wasn’t supposed to be like this! 

But just like that, it was done, and Mono understood. _If you won’t come home, then I’ll take what keeps you away from me._

The Thin Man had taken Six, and Mono could still hear her screams ringing in his ears as he crawled out from under the bed to face the terrible truth.

She was gone.

* * *

For someone who often prided herself on stealth and sneakiness, the little yellow girl in the Thin Man’s hand never stopped screaming. 

His grip tightened on her small frame until she yelped at the pain instead of her fear, her fussy struggle ceasing. But even when forcefully silenced, her fright had taken a slot in her typical ‘fight-or-flight’ reactions. He would be lying, however, if he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t just the tiniest bit satisfying as he strode up endless staircases to reach his destination.

 _“Still your tongue, girl, we’re not there yet,”_ his static growls hissed in her ear as he drew the tiny thing closer to his face. He snarled. Six sniffled, but her wails softened to whimpers. Tears streamed down her pale face, but her captor was far from merciful in his handling of her, and he made sure she knew it. This little yellow wretch who’d stolen his pride and joy from him… She who had ruined EVERYTHING he’d striven so hard to both protect and cultivate. And she’d gone and demolished it without a care. 

He would pay her back, all right. He’d do it in spades, and never again would _his_ Mono be distracted by something as useless and frivolous as “friendship”.

He had no room for friends. Neither did Mono. And as soon as the boy came to his senses, he would realize that. 

His connection to Mono far surpassed anything the little brat he’d caught could hope to give him. Sure, she had saved his neck a few times, but where was the push and pull? The give and take? Every time he got close enough to reach his protégé, to call him to return to the unstoppable reality, _she_ was there to pull him back from the precipice. To spirit him away from his true calling. Well, no more. Mono’s wake-up call was nigh. And if he had to hurt his Mono to make him see, then so be it.

The Thin Man carried Six through hallways, and up quite a few more flights of stairs. He kept his newfound relic clutched tight within colorless, scabbed hands and ascended until he reached Eternity. _Her_ Eternity. 

_“You will remain here for the time being,”_ the static phantom droned. He carelessly tossed Six’s small form into the attic playroom, where she landed roughly on a hard floor with a yowl and clutched her ankle. Her right ankle, now throbbing and pulsing after she’d landed wrongly on it, under her thin fingers. Her breath hissed painfully through her teeth, and Six sat there dumbly like a dog being reprimanded for taking a waiting, open treat. And yet, all he did was STARE at her! Gawking…

This room… It reminded her all too much of the toy room on the Maw. Of the electric-barred prison that the Impossible Man had herded the children into each day, locked up tight to ensure their staying in one place as they waited for their absolution.

Six’s observant stare flicked from her captor, to each wall in this dimly-lit room. From what she could gather, there looked to be… toys? Blocks, bears, little wooden ducks… There was a suitcase in the back, perhaps intended as a bed?

What kind of twisted kidnapping plot WAS this?! This on its own was already far worse than anything that had happened to her prior!

 _“Nngh..”_ Six groaned to herself while she tried to stand. The tall man watched her futile attempts with something indiscernible glinting in his steely eyes; and when Six inevitably fell and landed harshly as a result of the pain, it almost sounded like he was chuckling darkly at her misfortune. 

_“Insolent, puny little whelp. My boy wastes time and energy on you, and for what? All you do is taint things. You ravaged HIM. And I will not allow you to desecrate what I have worked hard to create any more.”_

Six glared daggers right back. Plenty before him had tried to break her spirit before, and this was no different. All Six would need to do was bide her time, yes! And when she could, she would show HIM what for. She always found a way out. Always. 

It may have been her childish fury talking, then, because her only response to his taunting was her middle finger raised high in her defiance. _Yep._ The ONE thing that Mono had both taught her and wasn’t keen on her using. The dreaded Middle Finger! And it seemed the tall man didn’t like it much either, because he began walking closer to her — and his face was far from amused.

Shit-!! Regretting it wouldn’t save her, but maybe scooting back to take refuge by the suitcase would! Except, no, because just as soon as she’d curled up by it, Six was pulled back into the air and his hand had wrapped itself around her small neck. Not to strangle, but suspend her in the air. 

Six just about stopped breathing in that moment, where she stared her potential death straight in the face. One mere twist or clench could snap her neck. What was he _doing?_

 _“It would do you well to be grateful that I have decided to show you even this mercy,”_ the man tsk’ed. _“If I wanted to, I could erase you from this world, and Mono would return home to the only companion he truly deserves.”_

From the hand that held her, what felt like one HELL of an electric shock erupted all around her neck. All Six could see was flashing light, but the sheer _agony_ running through her neck was enough to make her cry all over again. This shocky-squeezy thing continued for what felt like a minute but was probably only a few more seconds. Either way though, Six had been shocked to a state of drained energy, and she laid there limply - but conscious, drifting in and out - as her captor carried her over to the suitcase and laid her in it on her back. 

The little girl breathed heavily as he stood back up. But with him when he withdrew his hand from her came something light and wispy, like a golden, glowing orb surrounded by fog. A… glowing ball? What had he DONE to her?

The Thin Man crossed the room again. And through her blurred vision Six watched something else materialize in his free hand. Small, and round… He put the golden orb inside it with a hiss and sealed it up, only to toss the object over his shoulder at her. Six didn’t even see it coming. And it was only when the mystery object had clattered to the floor - and searing pain spiked through her shoulder, causing her to howl in her surprise - that the girl realized what it was. 

A music box. _Her_ music box. It had been returned to her in the worst of ways, and now lay discarded a few feet away from her resting place. Six’s limbs fought to sit up, to lurch toward the music box, but her body disobeyed. Every further movement only made her more drowsy, and it was a wonder that she even caught the Thin Man’s final words to her. 

_“There we go. You’ll thank me for that later. I would keep that safe and hidden if I were you, though… You can never tell just when someone is going to tear your most prized possession away from you… Isn’t that right,_ _Six_ _?”_

Six cursed under her breath. 

_“Go to sleep now. You’ll need your rest.”_

The door began to close. Six inhaled, but her breath wavered once she realized she was being locked into this cursed dark-room. Trapped in a tower with someone who hated her guts for reasons she did not know—

 _“No-!”_ She cried out weakly just as the door shut and locked with an echoed ‘click’. 

She’d been left there in the dark. Alone, without Mono, in a crude playroom that was designed to mock her. _Go to your room and think about what you did,_ it seemed to say. This wasn’t fair! Ripped from her only ally, and she had nobody but the voices in her head to turn to. Six crumbled. Misery won out, then, and she shrieked. Helplessness gave way to anger, and that meant she vented in a tantrum. She kicked, she screamed, but nothing helped. And nothing would unless either Mono came to free her, or her kidnapper let her go. Neither of which she could see happening any time soon. If Mono too was alone, he was completely vulnerable to every bad thing this city had to offer. In the darkness. By himself. With no helping hand to see him through.

Could he even _DO_ it…?

Six had learned long ago not to hold out hope. It was dangerous to hope— but the sheer weight of the situation being thrust upon her meant that her emotions refused to cooperate. Refused to shut down when she needed them to, and that made it all hurt worse. 

_“Mono, help me..”_ she whimpered, voice cracking. _“Please don’t leave me in here..”_

With only her last sliver of hope and the image of her best friend in her mind keeping her going, Six surrendered to a teary, exhausted sleep.


End file.
